Mahdist War and the Siege of Khartoum approx. 50,000 men Siege of Khartoum - Background: In the wake of 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War, British troops remained in Egypt to protect British interests. Though occupying the country, they allowed the Khedive to continue overseeing domestic affairs. This included dealing with the Mahdist Revolt which had commenced in Sudan. Though technically under Egyptian rule, large parts of Sudan had fallen to Mahdist forces led by Muhammad Ahmad. Considering himself the Mahdi (the redeemer of Islam), Ahmad defeated Egyptian forces at El Obeid in November 1883 and overran Kordofan and Darfur. This defeat and the deteriorating situation led to Sudan being discussed in Parliament. Assessing the problem and wishing to avoid the cost of intervention, Prime Minister William Gladstone and his cabinet were unwilling to commit forces to the conflict. As a result, their representative in Cairo, Sir Evelyn Baring, directed the Khedive to order the garrisons in Sudan to evacuate back into Egypt. To oversee this operation, London requested that Major General Charles "Chinese" Gordon be placed in command.

A veteran officer and former governor-general of Sudan, Gordon was familiar with the region and its peoples. Leaving in early 1884, he was also tasked with reporting on the best means for extracting the Egyptians from the conflict. Arriving in Cairo, he was re-appointed Governor-General of Sudan with full executive powers. Sailing up the Nile, he arrived at Khartoum on February 18. Directing his limited forces against the advancing Mahdists, Gordon began evacuating women and children north to Egypt. Siege of Khartoum - Gordon Digs In: Though London desired to abandon Sudan, Gordon firmly believed the Mahdists needed to be defeated or they could overrun Egypt. Citing a lack of boats and transport, he ignored his orders to evacuate and began organizing a defense of Khartoum. In an effort to win over the city's residents, he improved the justice system and remitted taxes. Recognizing that Khartoum's economy rested on the slave trade, he re-legalized slavery despite the fact the he had originally abolished it during his earlier term as governor-general. While unpopular at home, this move increased Gordon's support in the city.

As he moved forward, he began requesting reinforcements to defend the city. An initial request for a regiment of Turkish troops was denied as was a later call for a force of Indian Muslims. Increasingly agitated by Gladstone's lack of support, Gordon began sending a series of angry telegrams to London. These soon became public and led to a vote of no confidence against Gladstone's government. Though he survived, Gladstone steadfastly refused to become committed to a war in Sudan. Left on his own, Gordon began enhancing Khartoum's defenses. Protected to the north and west by the White and Blue Niles, he saw that fortifications and trenches were constructed to the south and east. Facing the desert, these were supported by land mines and wire barriers. To defend the rivers, Gordon retrofitted several steamers into gunboats which were protected by metal plates. Attempting an offensive near Halfaya on March 16, Gordon's troops faltered and took 200 casualties. In the wake of the setback, he concluded that he should remain on the defensive. Siege of Khartoum - The Siege Begins: Later that month, Mahdist forces began to near Khartoum and skirmishing commenced.

With Mahdist forces closing in, Gordon telegraphed London on April 19 that he had provisions for five months. He also requested two to three thousand Turkish troops as his men were increasingly unreliable. Gordon believed that with such a force, he could drive off the enemy. As the month ended, the tribes to the north elected to join with the Mahdi and cut off Gordon's lines of communication to Egypt. While runners were able to make the journey, the Nile and telegraph were severed. As enemy forces surrounded the city, Gordon attempted to convince the Mahdi to make peace but with no success. Siege of Khartoum - Fall of Khartoum: Holding the city, Gordon was able to somewhat replenish his supplies by raiding with his gunboats. In London, his plight was played up in the press and eventually Queen Victoria directed Gladstone to send aid to the beleaguered garrison. Acquiescing in July 1884, Gladstone ordered General Sir Garnet Wolseley to form an expedition for the relief of Khartoum. Despite this, it took a substantial amount of time to organize the needed men and supplies.

As the fall progressed, Gordon's position became increasingly tenuous as supplies dwindled and many of his more capable officers were killed. Shortening his line, he constructed a new wall inside the city and tower from which to observe the enemy. Though communications remained spotty, Gordon did receive word that a relief expedition was en route. Despite this news, Gordon greatly feared for the city. A letter that arrived in Cairo on December 14 informed a friend, "Farewell. You will never hear from me again. I fear that there will be treachery in the garrison, and all will be over by Christmas." Two days later, Gordon was forced to destroy his outpost across the White Nile at Omdurman. Made aware of Gordon's concerns, Wolseley began pressing south. Defeating the Mahdists at Abu Klea on January 17, 1885, he men met the enemy again two days later. With the relief force approaching, the Mahdi began planning to storm Khartoum. Possessing around 50,000 men, he ordered one column to wade across the White Nile to attack the city's walls while another assaulted the Massalamieh Gate.

Moving forward on the night of January 25-26, both columns quickly overwhelmed the exhausted defenders. Swarming through the city, the Mahdists massacred the garrison and around 4,000 of Khartoum's residents. Though the Mahdi had expressly ordered that Gordon be taken alive, he was struck down in the fighting. Accounts of his death vary with some reports stating he was killed at the governor's palace, while others claim he was shot in the street while trying to escape to the Austrian consulate. In either case, Gordon's body was decapitated and taken to the Mahdi on a pike. Siege of Khartoum - Aftermath: In the fighting at Khartoum, Gordon's entire 7,000-man garrison was killed. Mahdist casualties are not known. Driving south, Wolseley's relief force reached Khartoum two days after the city's fall. With no reason to remain, he ordered his men to return to Egypt, leaving Sudan to the Mahdi. It remained under Mahdist control until 1898 when Major General Herbert Kitchener defeated them at the Battle of Omdurman .

Though a search was made for Gordon's remains after Khartoum was retaken, they were never found. Acclaimed by the public, Gordon's death was blamed on Gladstone who delayed forming a relief expedition. The resulting outcry led his government to fall in March 1885 and he was formally rebuked by Queen Victoria. Selected Sources Charles George Gordon | British general | Britannica.com Charles George Gordon Evelyn Baring, 1st earl of Cromer Charles George Gordon, byname Chinese Gordon (born Jan. 28, 1833, Woolwich , near London , Eng.—died Jan. 26, 1885, Khartoum, Sudan ), British general who became a national hero for his exploits in China and his ill-fated defense of Khartoum against the Mahdists . Charles George Gordon, portrait by Lady Julia Abercromby; in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London Gordon, the son of an artillery officer, was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1852.

During the Crimean War (1853–56) he distinguished himself by his reckless bravery in the siege trenches outside Sevastopol . He was promoted to captain in 1859 and volunteered the following year to join the British forces that were fighting the Chinese in the “ Arrow ” War. He was present at the occupation of Beijing (October 1860) and personally directed the burning of the Chinese emperor’s summer palace. In May 1862 Gordon’s corps of engineers was assigned to strengthen the bulwarks of the European trading centre of Shanghai, which was threatened by the insurgents of the Taiping Rebellion . A year later he became commander of the 3,500-man peasant force, known as the “ Ever-Victorious Army ,” raised to defend the city. During the next 18 months Gordon’s troops played an important, though not a crucial, role in suppressing the Taiping uprising.

He returned in January 1865 to England , where an enthusiastic public had already dubbed him “Chinese Gordon.” For the next five years he was commander of the Royal Engineers at Gravesend , Kent; he spent his spare time developing his own unorthodox, mystical brand of Christianity and engaging in philanthropic activity among poor youths. BBC - History - Historic Figures: General Charles Gordon (1833 - 1885) z General Charles Gordon © British general Charles Gordon became a national hero for his exploits in China and his ill-fated defence of Khartoum against Sudanese rebels. Charles Gordon was born on 28 January 1833, the son of a senior army officer. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1852. He distinguished himself in the Crimean War (1853 - 1856) and in 1860 volunteered for the 'Arrow' war against the Chinese. In May 1862 Gordon's corps of engineers was assigned to strengthen the European trading centre of Shanghai, which was threatened by the insurgents of the Taiping Rebellion.

A year later he became commander of the 3,500-man peasant force raised to defend the city. During the next 18 months Gordon's troops played an important role in suppressing the Taiping uprising. He returned to England in January 1865, where an enthusiastic public had already dubbed him 'Chinese Gordon'. In 1873, he was appointed governor of the province of Equatoria in the Sudan. Between April 1874 and December 1876 he mapped the upper Nile and established a line of stations along the river as far south as present day Uganda. He was then promoted to governor general, where he asserted his authority, crushing rebellions and suppressing the slave trade. However, ill health forced him to resign and return to England in 1880 before travelling once more to places including India, China and South Africa. In February 1884 Gordon returned to the Sudan to evacuate Egyptian forces from Khartoum threatened by Sudanese rebels led by Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi.

Khartoum came under siege the next month and on 26 January 1885 the rebels broke into the city, killing Gordon (apparently against al-Mahdi's instructions) and the other defenders. The British relief force arrived two days later. The British public reacted to his death by acclaiming 'Gordon of Khartoum', who had had a strong Christian faith, a martyred warrior-saint and by blaming the government, particularly William Gladstone, for failing to relieve the siege. However, historians have since suggested that Gordon defied orders and refused to evacuate Khartoum even though it remained possible until late in the siege. Internet History Sourcebooks Project Alfred Egmont Hake: The Death of General Gordon at Khartoum, 1885 [Tappan Introduction] In I882 there arose in the Soudan, a province of Upper Egypt, one Mohammed Ahmed, who called himself the Mahdi or Messiah, and invited all true believers to join in a holy war against the Christians. Thousands of wild tribesmen flocked to his banner, and in the following year he annihilated an army of eleven thousand English and Egyptians that had attempted to subdue the revolt.

Rather than send more soldiers to die in the deserts of the Upper Nile, England decided to abandon the province. But first the thousands of Europeans who had taken refuge in Khartoum and other towns of the Soudan must be rescued from their perilous position. In this crisis the Government turned to the one man who could effect the withdrawal if it was still possible, and in January, 1884, appointed General Gordon to superintend the evacuation of the Soudan. GENERAL GORDON arrived at Khartoum on February 18th, and spent his time between that date and the investment on March 12, in sending down women and children, two thousand of whom were sent safely through to Egypt, in addition to six hundred soldiers. It was stated by Sir Evelyn Baring (English consul-general to Egypt) that there were fifteen thousand persons in Khartoum who ought to be brought back to Egypt---Europeans, civil servants, widows and orphans, and a garrison of one thousand men, one third of whom were disaffected.

To get these people out of Khartoum was General Gordon's first duty, and the first condition of evacuation was the establishment of a stable government in the Soudan. The only man who could establish that government was Zebehr. Gordon demanded Zebehr with ever-increasing emphasis, and his request was decisively refused. He had then two alternatives---either to surrender absolutely to the Mahdi, or to hold on to Khartoum at all hazards. While Gordon was strengthening his position the Mahdi settled the question by suddenly assuming the offensive. The first step in this memorable siege was the daring march of four thousand Arabs to the Nile, by which, on March 12, they cut off the eight hundred men at Halfaya, a village to the north of Khartoum, from the city. A steamer was sent down to reconnoiter, and the moment she reached the front of the Arab position a volley was fired into her, wounding an officer and a soldier. The steamer returned the fire, killing five. Thus hostilities began.

"Our only justification for assuming the offensive," wrote General Gordon on March 13, "is the extrication of the Halfaya garrison." The Arabs, however, did not give him the chance. They cut off three companies of his troops who had gone out to cut wood, capturing eight of their boats, and killing or dispersing one hundred to one hundred and fifty men. They intrenched themselves along the Nile, and kept up a heavy rifle-fire. Retreat for the garrison was obviously impossible when the Arab force covered the river, the only line of retreat, with their fire. Twelve hundred men rere put on board two grain-barges, towed by three steamers defended with boiler plates, and carrying mountain-guns protected by wooden mantlets; and, with the loss of only two killed, they succeeded in extricating the five hundred men left of the garrison of Halfaya, and capturing seventy camels and eighteen horses, with which they returned to Khartoum. The Arabs, however, held Halfaya, and on March 16 Gordon tried to drive them away.

Advancing from a stockaded position covering the north front of the town, two thousand troops advanced across the open in square, supported by the fire of the guns of two steamers. The Arabs were retreating, when Hassan and Seid Pashas, Gordon's black generals, rode into the wood and called back the enemy. The Egyptians, betrayed by their officers, broke and fled after firing a single volley, and were pursued to within a mile of the stockade, abandoning two mountain guns with their ammunition---"sixty horsemen defeated two thousand men"---and leaving two hundred of their number on the field. After this affair he was convinced that he could not take the offensive, but must remain quiet at Khartoum, and wait till the Nile rose. Six days later, the black pashas were tried by court-martial, found guilty, and shot. A very determined attack upon one of the steamers coming up from Berber, at the Salboka Pass, was beaten off with great slaughter, Gordon's men firing no fewer than fifteen thousand rounds of Remington ammunition. Meanwhile, his efforts to negotiate with the Mahdi failed.

"I will make you Sultan of Kordofan," he had said on arrival to the Mahdi. "I am the Mahdi," replied Mahomet Ahmet, by emissaries who were "exceedingly cheeky," keeping their hands upon their swords, and laying a filthy, patched dervish's coat before him. "Will you become a Mussulman?" Gordon flung the bundle across the room, canceled the Mahdi's sultanship, and the war was renewed. From that day to the day of the betrayal no day passed without bullets dropping into Khartoum. Gordon now set to work in earnest to place Khartoum in a defensible position. Ten thousand of the Madhi's sympathizers left Khartoum and joined the enemy. The steamers kept up a skirmishing fight on both Niles. All the houses on the north side of Khartoum were loopholed. A sixteen-pounder Krupp was mounted on a barge, and wire was stretched across the front of the stockade. The houses on the northern bank of the Blue Nile were fortified and garrisoned by Bashi-Bazouks. Omdurman was held and fortified on the west and Buri on the east.

On March 25, Gordon had to disarm and disband two hundred and fifty Bashi-Bazouks who refused to occupy stockaded houses in a village on the south bank of the Blue Nile. The rebels advanced on Hadji Ali, a village to the north of the Nile, and fired into the palace. They were shelled out of their position, but constantly returned to harass the garrison. They seemed to Gordon mere rag-tag and bob-tail, but he dared not go out to meet them, for fear of the town. Five hundred brave men could have cleared out the lot, but he had not a hundred. The fighting was confined to artillery fire on one side, and desultory rifle-shooting on the other. This went on till the end of March. The Arabs clustered more closely round the town. On April 19, Gordon telegraphed that he had provisions for five months, and if he only had two thousand to three thousand Turkish troops he could soon settle the rebels. Unfortunately, he received not one fighting man. Shendy fell into the hands of the Mahdi. Berber followed, and then for months no word whatever reached this country from Khartoum. On September 29, Mr.

Power's telegram, dated July 31, was received by the "Times." From that we gathered a tolerably clear notion of the way in which the war went on. Anything more utterly absurd than the accusation that Gordon forced fighting on the Mahdi cannot be conceived. He acted uniformly on the defensive, merely trying to clear his road of an attacking force, and failing because he had no fighting men to take the offensive. He found himself in a trap, out of which he could not cut his way. If he had possessed a single regiment, the front of Khartoum might have been cleared with ease; but his impotence encouraged the Arabs, and they clustered round in ever-increasing numbers, until at last they crushed his resistance. After the middle of April the rebels began to attack the palace in force, having apparently established themselves on the north bank. The loss of life was chiefly occasioned by the explosion of mines devised by General Gordon, and so placed as to explode when trodden on by the enemy. Of all his expedients these mines were the most successful and the least open to any accusation of offensive operations.

The Arabs closed in all round towards the end of April, and General Gordon surrounded himself with a formidable triple barrier of land torpedoes, over which wire entanglement and a formidable chevaux-de-frise enabled the garrison to feel somewhat secure. On April 27, Valeh Bey surrendered at Mesalimeh, a disaster by which General Gordon lost one steamer, seventy shiploads of provisions, and two thousand rifles. General Gordon was now entirely cut off from the outside world, and compelled to rely entirely upon his his own resources. He sent out Negroes to entice the slaves of the Arabs to come over, promising them freedom and rations. This he thought would frighten the Arabs more than bullets. On April 26, he made his first issue of paper-money to the extent of ,2500 redeemable in six months. By July 30, it had risen to ,26,000 besides the ,50,000 borrowed from merchants. On the same day he struck decorations for the defense of Khartoum---for officers in silver, silver-gilt and pewter for the private soldiers.

These medals bear a crescent and a star, with words from the Koran, and the date, with an inscription,---"Siege of Khartoum,"---and a hand-grenade in the center. "School-children and women," he wrote, "also received medals; consequently, I am very popular with the black ladies of Khartoum." The repeated attacks of the Mahdi's forces on Khartoum cost the Arabs many lives. On May 25, Colonel Stewart was slightly wounded in the arm, when working a mitrailleuse near the palace. All through May and June his steamers made foraging expeditions up and down the Nile, shelling the rebels when they showed in force, and bringing back much cattle to the city. On Midsummer Day, Mr. Cuzzi, formerly Gordon's agent at Berber, but now a prisoner of the Mahdi's, was sent to the wells to announce the capture of Berber. It was sad news for the three Englishmen alone in the midst of a hostile Soudan. Undaunted, they continued to stand at bay, rejoicing greatly that in one, Saati Bey, they had, at least, a brave and capable officer.

Saati had charge of the steamers, and for two months he had uninterrupted success, in spite of the twisted telegraph wires which the rebels stretched across the river. Unfortunately, on July 10, Saati, with Colonel Stewart and two hundred men, after burning Kalaka and three villages, attacked Gatarnulb. Eight Arab horsemen rode at the two hundred Egyptians. The two hundred fled at once, not caring to fire their Remingtons, and poor Saati was killed. Colonel Stewart narrowly escaped a similar fate. After July 31, there is a sudden cessation of regular communications. Power's journal breaks off then, and we are left to more or less meager references in Gordon's dispatches. On August 23, he sent a characteristic message, in which he announces that, the Nile having risen, he has sent Colonel Stewart, Mr. Power, and the French consul to take Berber, occupy it for fifteen days, burn it, and then return to Khartoum.

All the late messages from Gordon, except a long dispatch of November 4, which has never been published, were written on tissue paper no bigger than a postage-stamp, and either concealed in a quill thrust into the hair, or sewn in the waistband of the natives employed. Gordon seems to have been the most active in August and September, when the Nile was high. He had eight thousand men at Khartoum and Senaar. He sent Colonel Stewart and the troops with the steamers to recapture Berber. A steamer which bore a rough effigy of Gordon at the prow was said to be particularly dreaded by the rebels. OnAugust 26, he reported that he had provisions for five months, but in the forays made by his steamer on the Southern Niles he enormously replenished his stores. On one of these raids he took with him six thousand men in thirty-four boats towed by nine steamers. After his defeat before Omdurman, the Mahdi is said to have made a very remarkable prophecy.

He retired into a cave for three days, and on his return he told his followers that Allah had revealed that for sixty days there would be a rest, and after that blood would flow like water. The Mahdi was right. Almost exactly sixty days after that prophecy there was fought the battle of Abu Klea. Stewart had by this time been treacherously killed on his way down from Berber to Dongola. Gordon was all alone. The old men and women who had friends in the neighboring villages left the town. The uninhabited part was destroyed, the remainder was inclosed by a wall. In the center of Khartoum he had built himself a tower, from the roof of which he kept a sharp lookout with his field-glass in the daytime. At night he went the rounds of the fortifications, cheering his men and keeping them on the alert against attacks. Treachery was always his greatest dread. Many of the townsfolk sympathized with the Mahdi; he could not depend on all his troops, and he could only rely on one of his pashas, Mehmet Ali. He rejoiced exceedingly in the news of the approach of the British relieving force.

He illuminated Khartoum and fired salutes in honor of the news, and he doubled his exertions to fill his granaries with grain. On December 14, a letter was received by one of his friends in Cairo from General Gordon, saying, "Farewell. You will never hear from me again. I fear that there will be treachery in the garrison, and all will be over by Christmas." It was this melancholy warning that led Lord Wolseley to order the dash across the Desert. On December 16 came news that the Mahdi had again failed in his attack on Omdurman. Gordon had blown up the fort which he had built over against the town, and inflicted great loss on his assailants, who, however, invested the city closely on all sides. The Mahdi had returned to Omdurman, where he had concentrated his troops. Thence he sent fourteen thousand men to Berber to recruit the forces of Osman Digma, and it was these men, probably, that fought the English relief army at Abu Klea.

After this nothing was heard beyond the rumor that Omdurman was captured and two brief messages from Gordon, sent probably to hoodwink the enemy, by whom most of his letters were captured. The first, which arrived January 1, was as follows: "Khartoum all right.---C. G. Gordon. December 14, I884." The second was brought by the steamers which met General Stewart at Mentemneh on January 21st: "Khartoum all right; could hold out for years.---C. G. Gordon. December 29." On January 26, Faraz Pasha opened the gates of the city to the enemy, and one of the most famous sieges in the world's history came to a close. It had lasted from March 12 to January 26---exactly three hundred and twenty days. When Gordon awoke to find that, through the treachery of his Egyptian lieutenant, Khartoum was in the hands of the Mahdi, he set out with a few followers for the Austrian consulate.

Recognized by a party of rebels, he was shot dead on the street and his head carried through the town at the end of a pike, amid the wild rejoicings of the Mahdi's followers. Two days later the English army of relief reached Khartoum. Source From: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Art, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), Vol. III: Egypt, Africa, and Arabia, pp. 240-249. Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg Note: Many Western sources about Islamic countries exhibit what has come to be known as orientalism. The terms used ("Mohammedan" for instance rather than "Muslim"), and the attitudes exhibited by the writers need to be questioned by modern readers. This text is part of the Internet Islamic History Sourcebook . The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.

Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook. © Paul Halsall, November1998 Alfred Egmont Hake, "The Death of General Gordon at Khartoum" (1885) Home > Related Texts The Death of General Gordon at Khartoum, 1885 Alfred Egmont Hake in Eva March Tappan (ed.) The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Art (Boston, 1914) vol. III, pp. 240-249. General Gordon arrived at Khartoum on February 18th, and spent his time between that date and the investment on March 12, in sending down women and children, two thousand of whom were sent safely through to Egypt, in addition to six hundred soldiers.

It was stated by Sir Evelyn Baring (English consul-general to Egypt) that there were fifteen thousand persons in Khartoum who ought to be brought back to Egypt- Europeans, civil servants, widows and orphans, and a garrison of one thousand men, one third of whom were disaffected. To get these people out of Khartoum was General Gordon's first duty, and the first condition of evacuation was the establishment of a stable government in the Soudan. The only man who could establish that government was Zebehr. Gordon demanded Zebehr with ever-increasing emphasis, and his request was decisively refused. He had then two alternatives - either to surrender absolutely to the Mahdi, or to hold on to Khartoum at all hazards. While Gordon was strengthening his position the Mahdi settled the question by suddenly assuming the offensive. The first step in this memorable siege was the daring march of four thousand Arabs to the Nile, by which, on March 12, they cut off the eight hundred men at Halfaya, a village to the north of Khartoum, from the city.

A steamer was sent down to reconnoiter, and the moment she reached the front of the Arab position a volley was fired into her, wounding an officer and a soldier. The steamer returned the fire, killing five. Thus hostilities began. "Our only justification for assuming the offensive," wrote General Gordon on March 13, "is the extrication of the Halfaya garrison." The Arabs, however, did not give him the chance. They cut off three companies of his troops who had gone out to cut wood, capturing eight of their boats, and killing or dispersing one hundred to one hundred and fifty men. They intrenched themselves along the Nile, and kept up a heavy rifle-fire. Retreat for the garrison was obviously impossible when the Arab force covered the river, the only line of retreat, with their fire. Twelve hundred men rere put on board two grain-barges, towed by three steamers defended with boiler plates, and carrying mountain-guns protected by wooden mantlets; and, with the loss of only two killed, they succeeded in extricating the five hundred men left of the garrison of Halfaya, and capturing seventy camels and eighteen horses, with which they returned to Khartoum.

The Arabs, however, held Halfaya, and on March 16 Gordon tried to drive them away. Advancing from a stockaded position covering the north front of the town, two thousand troops advanced across the open in square, supported by the fire of the guns of two steamers. The Arabs were retreating, when Hassan and Seid Pashas, Gordon's black generals, rode into the wood and called back the enemy. The Egyptians, betrayed by their officers, broke and fled after firing a single volley, and were pursued to within a mile of the stockade, abandoning two mountain guns with their ammunition - "sixty horsemen defeated two thousand men" - and leaving two hundred of their number on the field. After this affair he was convinced that he could not take the offensive, but must remain quiet at Khartoum, and wait till the Nile rose. Six days later, the black pashas were tried by court-martial, found guilty, and shot. A very determined attack upon one of the steamers coming up from Berber, at the Salboka Pass, was beaten off with great slaughter, Gordon's men firing no fewer than fifteen thousand rounds of Remington ammunition.

Meanwhile, his efforts to negotiate with the Mahdi failed. "I will make you Sultan of Kordofan," he had said on arrival to the Mahdi. "I am the Mahdi," replied Mahomet Ahmet, by emissaries who were "exceedingly cheeky," keeping their hands upon their swords, and laying a filthy, patched dervish's coat before him. "Will you become a Mussulman?" Gordon flung the bundle across the room, canceled the Mahdi's sultanship, and the war was renewed. From that day to the day of the betrayal no day passed without bullets dropping into Khartoum. Gordon now set to work in earnest to place Khartoum in a defensible position. Ten thousand of the Madhi's sympathizers left Khartoum and joined the enemy. The steamers kept up a skirmishing fight on both Niles. All the houses on the north side of Khartoum were loopholed. A sixteen-pounder Krupp was mounted on a barge, and wire was stretched across the front of the stockade. The houses on the northern bank of the Blue Nile were fortified and garrisoned by Bashi-Bazouks.

Omdurman was held and fortified on the west and Buri on the east. On March 25, Gordon had to disarm and disband two hundred and fifty Bashi-Bazouks who refused to occupy stockaded houses in a village on the south bank of the Blue Nile. The rebels advanced on Hadji Ali, a village to the north of the Nile, and fired into the palace. They were shelled out of their position, but constantly returned to harass the garrison. They seemed to Gordon mere rag-tag and bob-tail, but he dared not go out to meet them, for fear of the town. Five hundred brave men could have cleared out the lot, but he had not a hundred. The fighting was confined to artillery fire on one side, and desultory rifle-shooting on the other. This went on till the end of March. The Arabs clustered more closely round the town. On April 19, Gordon telegraphed that he had provisions for five months, and if he only had two thousand to three thousand Turkish troops he could soon settle the rebels. Unfortunately, he received not one fighting man. Shendy fell into the hands of the Mahdi.

Berber followed, and then for months no word whatever reached this country from Khartoum. On September 29, Mr. Power's telegram, dated July 31, was received by the "Times." From that we gathered a tolerably clear notion of the way in which the war went on. Anything more utterly absurd than the accusation that Gordon forced fighting on the Mahdi cannot be conceived. He acted uniformly on the defensive, merely trying to clear his road of an attacking force, and failing because he had no fighting men to take the offensive. He found himself in a trap, out of which he could not cut his way. If he had possessed a single regiment, the front of Khartoum might have been cleared with ease; but his impotence encouraged the Arabs, and they clustered round in ever-increasing numbers, until at last they crushed his resistance. After the middle of April the rebels began to attack the palace in force, having apparently established themselves on the north bank. The loss of life was chiefly occasioned by the explosion of mines devised by General Gordon, and so placed as to explode when trodden on by the enemy.

Of all his expedients these mines were the most successful and the least open to any accusation of offensive operations. The Arabs closed in all round towards the end of April, and General Gordon surrounded himself with a formidable triple barrier of land torpedoes, over which wire entanglement and a formidable chevaux-de-frise enabled the garrison to feel somewhat secure. On April 27, Valeh Bey surrendered at Mesalimeh, a disaster by which General Gordon lost one steamer, seventy shiploads of provisions, and two thousand rifles. General Gordon was now entirely cut off from the outside world, and compelled to rely entirely upon his his own resources. He sent out Negroes to entice the slaves of the Arabs to come over, promising them freedom and rations. This he thought would frighten the Arabs more than bullets. On April 26, he made his first issue of paper-money to the extent of ,2500 redeemable in six months. By July 30, it had risen to ,26,000 besides the ,50,000 borrowed from merchants.

On the same day he struck decorations for the defense of Khartoum - for officers in silver, silver-gilt and pewter for the private soldiers. These medals bear a crescent and a star, with words from the Koran, and the date, with an inscription, - "Siege of Khartoum," - and a hand-grenade in the center. "School-children and women," he wrote, "also received medals; consequently, I am very popular with the black ladies of Khartoum." The repeated attacks of the Mahdi's forces on Khartoum cost the Arabs many lives. On May 25, Colonel Stewart was slightly wounded in the arm, when working a mitrailleuse near the palace. All through May and June his steamers made foraging expeditions up and down the Nile, shelling the rebels when they showed in force, and bringing back much cattle to the city. On Midsummer Day, Mr. Cuzzi, formerly Gordon's agent at Berber, but now a prisoner of the Mahdi's, was sent to the wells to announce the capture of Berber. It was sad news for the three Englishmen alone in the midst of a hostile Soudan.

Undaunted, they continued to stand at bay, rejoicing greatly that in one, Saati Bey, they had, at least, a brave and capable officer. Saati had charge of the steamers, and for two months he had uninterrupted success, in spite of the twisted telegraph wires which the rebels stretched across the river. Unfortunately, on July 10, Saati, with Colonel Stewart and two hundred men, after burning Kalaka and three villages, attacked Gatarnulb. Eight Arab horsemen rode at the two hundred Egyptians. The two hundred fled at once, not caring to fire their Remingtons, and poor Saati was killed. Colonel Stewart narrowly escaped a similar fate. After July 31, there is a sudden cessation of regular communications. Power's journal breaks off then, and we are left to more or less meager references in Gordon's dispatches. On August 23, he sent a characteristic message, in which he announces that, the Nile having risen, he has sent Colonel Stewart, Mr. Power, and the French consul to take Berber, occupy it for fifteen days, burn it, and then return to Khartoum.

All the late messages from Gordon, except a long dispatch of November 4, which has never been published, were written on tissue paper no bigger than a postage-stamp, and either concealed in a quill thrust into the hair, or sewn in the waistband of the natives employed. Gordon seems to have been the most active in August and September, when the Nile was high. He had eight thousand men at Khartoum and Senaar. He sent Colonel Stewart and the troops with the steamers to recapture Berber. A steamer which bore a rough effigy of Gordon at the prow was said to be particularly dreaded by the rebels. OnAugust 26, he reported that he had provisions for five months, but in the forays made by his steamer on the Southern Niles he enormously replenished his stores. On one of these raids he took with him six thousand men in thirty-four boats towed by nine steamers. After his defeat before Omdurman, the Mahdi is said to have made a very remarkable prophecy.

He retired into a cave for three days, and on his return he told his followers that Allah had revealed that for sixty days there would be a rest, and after that blood would flow like water. The Mahdi was right. Almost exactly sixty days after that prophecy there was fought the battle of Abu Klea. Stewart had by this time been treacherously killed on his way down from Berber to Dongola. Gordon was all alone. The old men and women who had friends in the neighboring villages left the town. The uninhabited part was destroyed, the remainder was inclosed by a wall. In the center of Khartoum he had built himself a tower, from the roof of which he kept a sharp lookout with his field-glass in the daytime. At night he went the rounds of the fortifications, cheering his men and keeping them on the alert against attacks. Treachery was always his greatest dread. Many of the townsfolk sympathized with the Mahdi; he could not depend on all his troops, and he could only rely on one of his pashas, Mehmet Ali. He rejoiced exceedingly in the news of the approach of the British relieving force.

He illuminated Khartoum and fired salutes in honor of the news, and he doubled his exertions to fill his granaries with grain. On December 14, a letter was received by one of his friends in Cairo from General Gordon, saying, "Farewell. You will never hear from me again. I fear that there will be treachery in the garrison, and all will be over by Christmas." It was this melancholy warning that led Lord Wolseley to order the dash across the Desert. On December 16 came news that the Mahdi had again failed in his attack on Omdurman. Gordon had blown up the fort which he had built over against the town, and inflicted great loss on his assailants, who, however, invested the city closely on all sides. The Mahdi had returned to Omdurman, where he had concentrated his troops. Thence he sent fourteen thousand men to Berber to recruit the forces of Osman Digma, and it was these men, probably, that fought the English relief army at Abu Klea.

After this nothing was heard beyond the rumor that Omdurman was captured and two brief messages from Gordon, sent probably to hoodwink the enemy, by whom most of his letters were captured. The first, which arrived January 1, was as follows: "Khartoum all right. - C. G. Gordon. December 14, I884." The second was brought by the steamers which met General Stewart at Mentemneh on January 21st: "Khartoum all right; could hold out for years. - C. G. Gordon. December 29." On January 26, Faraz Pasha opened the gates of the city to the enemy, and one of the most famous sieges in the world's history came to a close. It had lasted from March 12 to January 26 - exactly three hundred and twenty days. When Gordon awoke to find that, through the treachery of his Egyptian lieutenant, Khartoum was in the hands of the Mahdi, he set out with a few followers for the Austrian consulate.

Recognized by a party of rebels, he was shot dead on the street and his head carried through the town at the end of a pike, amid the wild rejoicings of the Mahdi's followers. Two days later the English army of relief reached Khartoum. [See errors in this document? Please Flag it up here .Thanks!] See also.. LiveLeak.com - OnThisDay 26th January: Gordon Killed at Khartoum (1885) Browse Channels OnThisDay 26th January: Gordon Killed at Khartoum (1885) For the Victorian public, if not the political and military leaders of the country, General Charles George Gordon was a hero of the Empire, a figure of enormous symbolic if not bodily stature – he was 5’ 5” tall. But the reality of his mission to Khartoum and his death is more complex. Charles George Gordon had fought in the Crimea, and had particularly made a name for himself in China during the Opium Wars. He had also gained a reputation as a top notch colonial administrator, serving as governor general of Sudan in 1876 among other senior positions.

He had trained as a Royal Engineers officer, and been involved in several major civil engineering projects in Britain and overseas, distinguishing himself as an organizer with a will to get things done.Egypt in the 1880s was a British protectorate, but Sudan as an Egyptian possession was largely left to the Egyptians to rule. Whe - Khartoum Remind Me Khartoum A visually stunning historical epic set against the deserts of the Sudan, Khartoum (1966) stars Charlton Heston as the enigmatic General Sir Charles "Chinese" Gordon, assigned by British Prime Minister Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) to protect their interests in the Sudan. The real life British General Gordon was killed in 1885 in a bloody clash with Sudanese rebels and became a hero to Victorian England and an icon for the British imperial cause. Gordon finds his life's greatest opponent and his own inevitable death in the man who defeats him during this desert campaign. The Mahdi (Laurence Olivier) is a self-appointed messiah or "chosen one," an Islamic religious fanatic with a dream of uniting all Arabs under his rule.

In an early scene of Khartoum the Mahdi's jihad has led to the massacre of British troops and an 8,000 strong Egyptian army. Gordon, who has a love for the region and commands great respect among its people, is called upon to somehow make peace with the Mahdi. But after a first meeting at the Mahdi's desert camp, he realizes that his opponent is bent on conquest. Gordon rushes back to the Egyptian and European occupied Khartoum to protect its people, who welcome the General as their own messiah. In a valiant attempt to save the city, he digs a great moat to separate it from the Mahdi's troops and sends his aide Col. J.D.H. Stewart (Richard Johnson) to England to retrieve the British Army, though Stewart's ship is hijacked by the Mahdi's forces and all on board massacred. [SPOILER ALERT]! After a 317-day siege, the Sudanese army takes control of the city and kills Gordon an ironic two days before help arrives.

In a stroke of poetic justice, the rats that feed on the 35,000 dead of Khartoum bring plague to the Mahdi's tents and he also dies. Prior to production on Khartoum, several directors were considered - Bernhard Wicki (Morituri, 1965), Ken Hughes (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1968), Carol Reed (The Third Man, 1949) - before Basil Dearden was finally chosen to helm the epic. Interiors were filmed at Pinewood Studios in England with actual locations in Egypt being used for exterior shots. Later, after the film was completed, Heston admitted (in his autobiography, In the Arena) that "the most important sequence we had to shoot in Egypt was Gordon's arrival in Khartoum. The real Khartoum was a more or less modern city by 1965, and much too far up the Nile in any event.

Masghouna was closer and smaller; we dressed it for 1885 Khartoum, and I disembarked from our pretty little steamer, as Gordon had, with his aide and a staff of six or so, to be greeted by an ecstatic crowd of hundreds, welcoming me as the savior of the city. Our PR people claimed that there were people in the crowd whose grandfathers had known Gordon." The many clashes between the Mahdi's forces and the British and Egyptian armies are captured in a number of memorable action sequences choreographed by Yakima Canutt which did much to enhance the film's reputation. Despite a number of horrific looking equine wipeouts in these hyper-realistic battle sequences, Canutt revealed in his autobiography Stunt Man that "there were no injuries to a single horse in our work. However, two of the mounted police, during the lunch hour, were playing the game "Chicken." They rode at a full run toward each other and neither one would turn his horse. A head-on collusion occurred that crippled two good horses.

I stopped that game, but quick, and fired the men responsible." Khartoum producer Julian Blaustein was a stickler for authenticity, and so every detail of the film from the costumes to the armaments are historically correct. Blaustein even sent a copy of Khartoum's script to the Mahdi's grandson who returned it with a note. The grandson noted that he thought it an "extremely fine script." The only problem he could see was that his grandfather and Gordon never actually met, adding, "Ah, but Mr.

Blaustein, they should have!" There were some other inaccuracies, according to George MacDonald Fraser in his book, The Hollywood History of the World: "Gordon's screen relations with Stewart, his staff officer, are shown as initially antagonistic; the truth is that Gordon had asked for Stewart, they took to each other at once, and apart from one quarrel, got on very well." Heston's portrayal of Gordon is also overly heroic when, in Fraser's book the general is depicted as "a weird one, 'half-cracked,' 'mad,' 'a wild man'....almost removed from military college for throwing a man downstairs and stabbing another with a fork, asking complete strangers if they believed in Jesus, leading his Chinese storming parties smoking a cigar and carrying a cane..." But in Heston's view, "the single-handed capacity Gordon displayed again and again to control large groups of people quite unarmed and alone, is almost magical...He had a serenity of nature, along with a somewhat irrational temper. He was something of a martinet as well, and a lot of other complicated things.

But he did not have that curious neuroticism that, say, [T.E.] Lawrence had, though they both had a sort of soldier mysticism." (from The Films of Charlton Heston by Jeff Rovin) The performances of Heston and Olivier have been pointed out as two of the film's finest features. Though some criticized Olivier's Mahdi as a reprise of his role as the Moor from Vienna, Othello (1965), the year before, his performance is undeniably captivating and genuinely unnerving. Olivier and Heston proved a natural screen match-up, both accomplished at personifying a range of varied roles as George Macdonald Fraser noted in The Hollywood History of the World: "hero, tyrant, patriarch, statesman, king or commoner." Heston, many noted, was equally able to convey the dark depths of his character, the real General Gordon, whose military successes were apparently equal to his madness. In his journals, Heston waxed philosophical about his reasons for taking the part of Gordon: "It's a good part, presents the challenge of doing a mystic, as well as the English thing.

Also, it's a helluva good script." Though many of the performances were praised and Robert Ardrey's story received an Oscar® nomination, Khartoum garnered mixed reviews. Stephen Farber in Film Quarterly noted that "Olivier is virtually unrecognizable in his sly, perhaps over exotic portrayal of the Mahdi, while Charlton Heston as Gordon gives the most restrained and appealing performance of his spectacle career." One of the film's most memorable sequences, a four-minute prologue and stunning helicopter shots of the Nile River Valley, were eventually cut from the film after its release. Khartoum arrived on the tail end of a dying genre, the epic cycle, and because of that, performed poorly in its theatrical run. Or perhaps, as Heston ruefully noted, "it was clear my star power did not extend to a film with no women about a famous Brit largely unknown to American audiences." Director: Basil Dearden Siege of Khartoum | Military Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit Since the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War , the British military presence ensured that Egypt remained a de facto British protectorate .

However, the administration of Sudan was considered a domestic Egyptian matter, and left to the Khedive 's government. [1] As a result, the suppression of the Mahdist revolt was left to the Egyptian army, which suffered a bloody defeat at the hands of the Mahdist rebels at El Obeid , in November 1883. The Mahdi's forces captured huge amounts of equipment and overran large parts of Sudan, including Darfur and Kordofan . These events brought Sudan to the attention of the British government, and of the British public. The Prime Minister William Gladstone and his War Secretary Lord Hartington did not wish to become involved in Sudan. Accordingly, the British representative in Egypt, Sir Evelyn Baring , persuaded the Egyptian government that all their garrisons in Sudan should be evacuated. General Charles Gordon was then a popular figure in Great Britain. Having already held the Governor-Generalship of Sudan in 1876-79, he was appointed to accomplish this task. Gordon's ideas on Sudan were radically different from Gladstone's: he believed that the Mahdi's rebellion had to be defeated, or he might gain control of the whole of Sudan, and from there sweep over Egypt.

His fears were based on the Mahdi's claim to dominion over the entire Islamic world and on the fragility of the Egyptian army, which had suffered several defeats at the hands of the Sudanese. Gordon favoured an aggressive policy in Sudan, in agreement with noted imperialists such as Sir Samuel Baker and Sir Garnet Wolseley , and his opinions were published in The Times in January 1884. [2] Despite this, Gordon pledged himself to accomplish the evacuation of Sudan; he was given a credit of £100,000 and was promised by the British and Egyptian authorities "all support and cooperation in their power.". [3] On January 14, 1884, Gordon left the Charing Cross railway station in London for Dover, the ferry to Calais, and on to the Sudan. When in Cairo, Gordon met Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur , a former slave trader who had once controlled a semi-independent province in southern Sudan. The two men had a troubled history, as Gordon had been instrumental in destroying Zubayr's influence.

Passing over their previous enmity, Gordon became convinced that Zubayr was the only man with sufficient energy and charisma to counter the Mahdi. [4] On his way to Khartoum with his assistant, Colonel Stewart , Gordon stopped in Berber to address an assembly of tribal chiefs. Here he committed a cardinal mistake by revealing that the Egyptian government wished to withdraw from Sudan. The tribesmen became worried by this news, and their loyalty wavered. [5] Battle File:SiegeKhartoum02.JPG Gordon made a triumphal entry in Khartoum on February 18, 1884, but instead of organising the evacuation of the garrisons, set about administering the city. His first decisions were to reduce the injustices caused by the Egyptian colonial administration: arbitrary imprisonments were cancelled, torture instruments were destroyed, and taxes were remitted. To enlist the support of the population, Gordon legalised slavery, despite the fact that he himself had abolished it a few years earlier. This decision was popular in Khartoum, where the economy still rested on the slave trade, but caused controversy in Britain. [6] Muhammad Ahmad , the self-proclaimed Mahdi .

The British public opinion was shaken again shortly after by Gordon's demand that Zubayr Pasha be sent to help him. Zubayr, as a former slave trader, was very unpopular in Britain; the Anti-Slavery Society contested this choice, and Zubayr's appointment was denied by the government. [7] Despite this setback, Gordon was still determined to "smash up the Mahdi". He requested that a regiment of Turkish soldiers be sent to Khartoum as Egypt was still nominally a province of the Ottoman Empire . When this was refused, Gordon asked for a unit of Indian Muslim troops and later for 200 British soldiers to strengthen the defenses of Khartoum. All these proposals were rejected by the Gladstone cabinet, which was still intent on evacuation and refused absolutely to be pressured into military intervention in Sudan. This drove Gordon to resent the government's policy, and his telegrams to Cairo became more acrimonious. On April 8, he wrote: "I leave you with the indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons" and added that such a course would be "the climax of meanness".

[8] When these criticisms were made public in Britain, the conservative opposition seized on them and moved a vote of censure in the House of Commons. The government won by only 28 votes. [9] Knowing that the Mahdists were closing in, Gordon ordered the strengthening of the fortifications around Khartoum. The city was protected to the north by the Blue Nile and to the west by the White Nile . To defend the river banks, he created a flotilla of gunboats from nine small paddle-wheel steamers, until then used for communication purposes, which were fitted with guns and protected by metal plates. In the southern part of the town, which faced the open desert, he prepared an elaborate system of trenches, makeshift Fougasse-type land mines , and wire entanglements. Also, the surrounding country was controlled by the Shagia tribe, which was hostile to the Mahdi. [2] By early April 1884, the tribes north of Khartoum rose in support of the Mahdi, and cut the Egyptian traffic on the Nile and the telegraph to Cairo.

Communications were not entirely cut, as runners could still get through, but the siege had begun and Khartoum could only rely on its own food stores, which could last five or six months. On March 16, an abortive sortie from Khartoum was launched, which led to the death of 200 Egyptian troops as the combined forces besieging Khartoum grew to over 30,000 men. Through the months of April, May, June, and July, Gordon and the garrison dealt with being cut off as food stores dwindled and starvation began to set in for both the garrison and the civilian population. Communication was kept through couriers while Gordon also kept in contact with the Mahdi, who rejected his offers of peace and to lift the siege. On September 16, an expedition sent from Khartoum to Sennar was defeated by the Mahdists which resulted in the death of over 800 garrison troops at Al Aylafuh. By the end of the month, the Mahdi moved the bulk of his army to Khartoum, more than doubling the number already besieging it.

As of September 10, 1884, the civilian population of Khartoum was about 34,000. [10] Fall of Khartoum George W. Joy 's portrayal of Gordon's death Gordon's plight excited great concern in the British press , and even Queen Victoria intervened on his behalf. The government ordered him to return, but Gordon refused, saying he was honour-bound to defend the city. By July 1884, Gladstone reluctantly agreed to send an expedition to Khartoum. However, the expedition, led by Sir Garnet Wolseley , took several months to organise and only entered Sudan in January 1885. By then, Gordon's situation had become desperate, with the food supplies running low, many inhabitants dying of hunger and the defenders' morale at its lowest. The Nile Expedition for the relief of Gordon The relief expedition was attacked at Abu Klea on January 17, and two days later at Abu Kru. Though their square was broken at Abu Klea, the British managed to repel the Mahdists. The Mahdi, hearing of the British advance, decided to press the attack on Khartoum.

On the night of January 25–26, an estimated 50,000 Mahdists attacked the city wall just before midnight. The Mahdists took advantage of the low level of the Nile, which could be crossed on foot, and rushed around the wall on the shores of the river and into the town. The details of the final assault are vague, but it is said that by 3:30 am, the Mahdists managed to concurrently outflank the city wall at the low end of the Nile while another force, led by Al Nujumi, broke down the Massalamieh Gate despite taking some casualties from mines and barbed wire obstacles laid out by Gordon's men. The entire garrison, physically weakened by starvation, offered only patchy resistance and were slaughtered to the last man within a few hours, as were 4,000 of the town's inhabitants, while many others were carried into slavery. Accounts differ as to how Gordon was killed.

According to one version, when Mahdist warriors broke into the governor's palace, Gordon came out in full uniform, and, after disdaining to fight, he was speared to death—in defiance of the orders of the Mahdi, who had wanted him captured alive. [11] In another version, Gordon was recognised by Mahdists while making for the Austrian consulate and shot dead in the street. [12] What appears certain is that his head was cut off, stuck on a pike, and brought to the Mahdi as a trophy and his body dumped in the Nile. Advance elements of the relief expedition arrived within sight of Khartoum two days later. After the fall of the city, the surviving British and Egyptian troops withdrew from the Sudan, with the exception of the city of Suakin on the Red Sea coast and the Nile town of Wadi Halfa at the Egyptian border, leaving Muhammad Ahmad in control of the entire country. Aftermath Edit The British press put the blame of Gordon's death on Gladstone, who was charged with excessive slowness in sending relief to Khartoum.

He was rebuked by Queen Victoria in a telegram which became known to the public, and an acronym applied to him, G.O.M. for "Grand Old Man" which was changed to M.O.G. the "Murderer Of Gordon". His government fell in June 1885, though he was back in office the next year. However this public outcry soon paled, firstly when press coverage and sensationalism of the events began to diminish and secondly when the government released details of the £11.5 million military budget cost for pursuing war in the Sudan. In reality, Gladstone had always viewed the Egyptian-Sudanese imbroglio with distaste and had felt some sympathy for the Sudanese striving to throw off the Egyptian colonial rule. He once declared in the House of Commons: "Yes, those people are struggling to be free, and they are rightly struggling to be free." [13] Also, Gordon's arrogant and insubordinate manner did nothing to endear him to Gladstone's government. After his victory, Muhammad Ahmad became the ruler of most parts of what is now Sudan, and established a religious state, the Mahdiyah, which was governed by a harsh enforcement of Sharia law.

He died shortly afterwards, in June 1885, though the state he founded survived him. In Britain, Gordon came to be seen as a martyr and a hero. In 1896, an expedition led by Horatio Herbert Kitchener was sent to avenge his death (who swore to do so upon hearing of Gordon's demise) and reconquer Sudan. On 2 September 1898 Kitchener's troops defeated the bulk of the Mahdist army at the Battle of Omdurman . Two days later a memorial service for Gordon was held in front of the ruins of the palace where he had died. Surviving family members of the movement's leaders were held by the British in a prison in Egypt . [14] The women and children were held there for ten years. The men were held for twelve years. After their return to Sudan they were held under house arrest for the rest of their lives. Cultural depictions The Siege of Khartoum is the setting for Wilbur Smith 's novel The Triumph of the Sun , pub. 2005 G. A.

Henty wrote a young adults' novel about the siege called The Dash for Khartoum, originally published in 1892, since reissued and also available to read free online at Project Gutenberg . Henryk Sienkiewicz , Polish writer and Nobel Prize winner, set his novel In Desert and Wilderness in Sudan during Mahdi's rebellion, which plays a vital role in the plot. The 1999 Mike Leigh film Topsy-Turvy makes reference to the Fall of Khartoum. Gillian Slovo based her novel An Honourable Man (2012) on the established narrative of General Gordon's last days in Khartoum. References

Question: Which British general was killed at Khartoum in 1885?
Answer: Gordon